The Venture Bros. Season 4 - Volume 1 DVD Review

The Venture Bros. are back, but is that a good thing?

The best cartoon on television has returned, and with it comes this DVD release which graces us with eight more episodes to whet our appetite for inane super science adventure. Featuring the further exploits of the Venture family, the episodes on this set offer up a different experience than those in the first three seasons.

Picking up directly where the third season cliffhanger left off, we pick up season four with the death of Henchmen 24, the destruction of the Venture brother clones and Brock quitting OSI as well as his post at the Venture compound. All three of these changes have molded the show into something different than it was before; as the boys have one life to live and are now growing up, the family dynamic has changed without Brock there to nanny the family, and the light-hearted geek humor which 21 and 24 provided has now morphed 21 into a mentally unstable killing machine. The changes are evident, and have helped to keep the show fresh by sending it into a new direction.

Although the series has taken a new direction, The Venture Bros. is still the same show that you fell in love with. Featuring the same juvenile yet intelligent subversive humor, the show continues to take what we've been taught over years of watching/reading adventure and superhero stories and flips it all on its head, leaving us wondering what the show will do next. In this season that unpredictability comes mainly in the form of the inclusion of more story-driven episodes that further expand the Venture mythos. My favorite addition to the show's overarching plotline is Brock's introduction to SPHINX, the Cobra to GI Joe, that isn't what it first seemed.

This set consists of the first eight episodes of the fourth season. While I will admit that this is possibly the show's weakest stretch of episodes in their history, that doesn't mean that they are bad. In fact, there are a few episodes on this set which are excellent and deserve mention. The first is the season premiere "Blood of the Father, Heart of Steel" which is presented in a Tarantino-like manner with each scene taking place at a different point in the timeline. The first viewing of the episode may be confusing, but once you've see the ending and understand what you've just watched, you will undoubtedly want to see the episode again. My personal favorite episode of the season however is "Handsome Ransom," in which Batman: The Animated Series's Kevin Conroy lends his voice for the creepy Superman/Batman/Michael Jackson hybrid character. With some of the most uncomfortable humor in the series' history, this episode cannot be missed for fans of the show.

As for the technical aspects of this DVD set, you won't be disappointed. The audio is clean and uses the satellite speakers well. While the stereo audio transfer is fantastic, the video is a little less so. Still not bad, the video for this set does have some smaller issues which take away from the quality transfer. Occasionally the show will have problems with artifacting and clarity within darker scenes. There are definitely areas for improvement on this DVD, but the video and audio on this set are at such a level that unless you have a large and advanced enough system you won't even notice these issues. For video/audiophiles, you may want to wait for the upcoming Blu-ray release for the best quality possible.

Fans of the series will ask whether this set has any decent extras, to which I'm glad to say that there are a few well worth your time. The highlighted extra features are deleted scenes, the preview reel from San Diego Comic-Con, and a "lost" opening (presumably for the first episode of this season). None of these extras are really necessary, but they add 20 minutes of extra content to the disc. Where the real extra features come into play, however, are the commentary tracks from Doc Hammer & Jackson Publick which appear on every episode. If you're a fan of the show you owe it to yourself to check out the commentary, as it is every bit as funny as the show. While we wish that other extras would have been added to this set, namely the entire Comic-Con panel instead of just the preview reel, what is here is quite good for a truncated season set.

I have been mostly complimentary to this set so far, so I suppose I should let the other foot fall. My biggest problem that I have with this set is that it only contains the first half of the fourth season. I am aware that there was a nine month period between the two portions of the season, but this disc has been released just as the second to the last episode of the fourth season has aired. In other words, had the set been released near Comic-Con (July) as indicated by the creators in the commentary this would have been less egregious, but considering that this set has been released as the season is winding down it just makes the lack of the rest of the season and the wait for the second volume unbearable. Also, what's up with the fact that there wasn't a simultaneous Blu-ray release for this set as there was with the third season? We know the release is coming, the creators confirmed it in the commentary, but no release date has been mentioned thus far.

Taking the good with the bad, it is hard not to recommend this set, even if it is only eight episodes.